


self-portrait (paper flower’s still a beautiful thing)

by ixiterum



Category: Secret History - Donna Tartt
Genre: 1870s impressionist painted au, M/M, good god please someone make me stop writing this ship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-07
Updated: 2019-07-07
Packaged: 2020-06-23 22:51:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19711117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ixiterum/pseuds/ixiterum
Summary: impressionism is controversial, that’s the only safe bet about it, but francis needs to try it. he knows the perfect model - his museum curator/art dealer./note: this will probably remained unfinished bc i completely got infected with jojo brainrot.





	self-portrait (paper flower’s still a beautiful thing)

**Author's Note:**

> so i wrote this to celebrate getting a 5/5 on my ap art history exam . also the parentheses bit in the title is from who fell asleep in by los campesinos!  
> as usual i be writing in my phone notes like a fecking idiot so this might be  
> a. bad  
> b. ridden with mistakes

Richard had no idea how much Francis had paid to rent this whole ballroom, but it better have been worth it. The elegant brocade and cherry wood paneling on the walls set a beautiful stage for painting. Late afternooon light shone through the tall arch windows onto the hand-knotted Eastern-import rug covered in elaborate vegetal patterning. Did he really plan on coming back here day after day to paint? It must cost a fortune, not only in the extravagance but that the palace would be missing out on money from far more important clients seeking to host parties whilst their homes are being entirely re-wallpapered. 

His easel, taboret, and canvas were already set up, facing a lengthy velvet couch, dotted with small pillows whose patterns mirrored the carpet below. The canvas was large, around 6 feet tall and 4 feet wide. Some preliminary charcoal sketches dotted places on the material, forming the vague sense of a portrait.

“Sir Abernathy, did you intend to paint...”

Richard raised his eyebrows, and tried to shove his hands into his pockets (he missed). 

“You? Yes,” A dash of red flew across Francis’ face. “I need a model, and I figured a face I already know would work best. And your jaw, Mister Papen, fits my vision perfectly.”

Richard took a seat on the couch, while Francis stood beside the easel. A light linen shirt covered in oils and pigments draped over Francis with ease, and light from one of the arches shone into a reflection off his small glasses. He studied Richard, who sat with his legs crossed, arms outstretched on the backing of the furniture. On his left wrist, a small silver chain dangled onto the velvet, sparkling against the dense fabric. Delicate patterns woven into the heavy surface contrasted all of Richard, really. He was a simple, light, subject, like a swatch of white cotton sheets drifting on a late spring breeze from a clothesline. A glass of cool water after a game of football with some old college friends. An outside force against unsubstantial decadence. A sharp cheese among rich, creamy spreads. Francis was hungry and dreaming. He had the perfect vision instantly. A loose white shirt, untied at the collar, light trousers, his hair unkempt, and the shining bracelet.It was nearly a fantasy. 

“What do you mean? I’m very...plain, Sir.” 

Oh, if only he could see what I can. 

“Mister Papen, you are not plain, but rather, muted, austere. You are exactly what I need for this experiment I am trying.”

The word experiment worried Richard. Risk. Not a commission. Who could know if it would sell, make it to exhibitions? The Salon was testy these days. Too many experimenters. 

“What kind of experiment?”

“Did you see that painting of Monet’s? The Sunrise?”

Dread began to cross Richard’s face instantly. 

“Monet? Sir, I don’t mean to insult, but...those “Impressionists” aren’t fairing too well.” He desperately did not want to offend Francis. As his eyes gravitated to the beautiful gold signet ring on the Lord’s hand, he tried to swallow his regret, but could not. It wasn’t only his rank, but, another factor he could not place that made him need to supress the sick feeling in his stomach. This was the only work that Richard could ever see himself doing, barring things beyond his status - how much he would love to just be an academic, dedicating his life to language. It hung above him like a heavy pendulum that Francis could always snip the thin rope of his career. So could Lord Winter, the twins, who “needed” Richard but could so easily replace him for someone else to secure their gallery purchases. 

“That’s not something I’m afraid of right now. I just...tire of the same old portraits. Boring couples with ugly faces, stuff in a little religious bit to show our  piety,  but how pious truly is spending a farmer’s whole life earnings on a piece of canvas with your smug little grin on it? I need to paint you. Not just the Academy way. The way you deserve to be painted. In a thousand bright stars of paint. Realism is what we invented cameras for.”

Richard tried to ignore something felt deep in his chest. Business. Sales. Galleries. “I just worry if it will sell. There are lots of reas-“

Francis sat next to him. “I don’t need it to sell. I have plenty of money. Plenty damned money. I need to make real art,” A desperate look ran through his eyes, as he grabbed at Richard’s hands, “I’ll pay you commission for it, Hell, I’ll give it to you and buy it back. At least, pose, once? Please?”

He was in no position to deny this request, even if there was no trembling in Francis’ voice. 

“How do you want me to pose?”

Francis set up the scene, having prepared some clothes for Richard in case he agreed, ( How does he know my size? ) and lit one single candle on a strange holder stuck to the easel. It didn’t take long for Richard to start becoming his vision. Basic forms and shapes began to take form, in thick, unblended patches across the canvas. It was a completely new way of painting to Francis; even the brush sat strangely in his hand, the colors on his palette seemed unfamiliar. A stroke of yellow would be covered by a white tinted blue, to be followed by a lighter yellow, then a darker one, then the white...

It looked like nothing as the sun began to set and the light he needed disintegrated in the window. The candle, dripping onto the hickory stand, shed deformed shadows upon the textured gesso that remained unpainted. This is how the painting sessions ended for days upon end. Richard clearly could not see what Francis did in what looked like a lot of nonsense. Francis, though, would get home every night, and dream of the painting. It would start technical, reworking the skills of the old masters, later drifting to the subject. Richard’s lips looked so red with the light, nearly bloody, and for nearly a whole session that color had confounded him. The rest of the work hardly changed at all; he had to scrape the paint off the section at the end of the day. In one dream, the perfect combination of pigments appeared like an apparition of Mary to a devoted pilgrim. He haistily crawled out of bed, struggling for some parchment on his desk, then a pen, and he wrote it down in nearly illegible shorthand. A recent sickness he had fallen under caused him to collapse from the sudden rushes of blood, and until morning he slept on his floor. When he was awakened by the sun shining through the veranda doors, he had hardened blood on the back of his head, and the note clutched in his hand. The whole day was spent longing for the afternoon to meet with Richard to paint. It would be wasted if he tried to do it without his model, he needed to see the scene, with the light through the glass. All his other work was left aside, and even a visit from his old mentor, Julian, was turned down. He got a telegraph just before he was set to leave for the studio. Anxious, thinking Richard had cancelled, he did not even want to know what it said. He held his breath as he received the message - it was just from Henry.  Thank God.  Dinners and studies couldn’t have meant less to him then.

In the ballroom, Richard sat, already properly costumed for the painting. Without a greeting or any word at all, Francis rushed to the canvas, straightening out the piece of paper from his coat pocket. He didn’t bother to take the coat off either, getting paint on it was his last concern. Using the knife, he scraped up the colors on the board, mixed them, put it on the canvas - and it was wrong. Ever so slightly wrong. So close to being right the untrained eye wouldn’t notice, but to the trained eye it burned like a stigmata. 

“Oh, God damn it!”

Richard snapped out of the static stature that he was leaned into, seeing Francis holding the brush with a deathly grip. 

“What’s going on?”

“I, I can’t find this color! All this training with colors and I can’t find a red!”

“Where, Sir?”

Using the brush, he gestured towards the painted lips of Richard.

“Maybe it needs something metallic.”

Francis’ eyes squinted, turning to Richard, who studied the color intensely. It wasn’t some joke, haphazard guess. He was serious. Francis fell to his knees on the floor and dig through his taboret. There had to be something,  anything,  with a bit of shine. And buried under spare stretcher keys was a small tube of gold paint - real gold. Usually, there would be no way he would use this, unless it was for some sort of gilding as part of a commissioned work. At this point, with madness setting in, it was worth an expensive try. A tiny dash of the paint, a mix, a single stripe on the canvas. Even unfinished outside the figure, the whole work came together. It was it, a small drop of gold, smeared delicately. His brush fell to the canvas tarp below, some of the mixture splattering across much like an artist to come decades later. 

“That’s it. I-“


End file.
